This week we celebrated our Digital Marketing Manager, Kim’s, birthday! I am reminded every time we celebrate a birthday here at the ‘ville of how important and EASY it is to make our co-workers feel the love on their special day. Here are your quick ABCs for how to make your next employee’s or co-worker’s birthday sing! We've got a list A-Z to help you make workplace birthdays a blast for everyone:

Years (and years) ago, I was working as a document editor at a mortgage company. I progressed quickly and found myself just three years later leading a department of 21 people. It was around this time that I had the privilege of attending a week-long 7 Habits of Highly Effective People® workshop. This course was one of those monumental growth experiences that I mark as a milestone in my career. I learned to focus on putting first things first and the importance of sharpening the saw. But, my biggest takeaway was this quote by Stephen Covey:

“If the ladder is not leaning against the right wall, every step we take just gets us to the wrong place faster.”

It's 8:55 am, I have a 9 am deadline, and all I have to do is press print...then BAM! It happens. Everything is still... My computer is frozen. I say a prayer that I hit save, or somehow the computer will recover all of my files. I know the next step is the classic CTRL+ALT+DELETE... Nope. It's time to restart. We've all been there! Luckily we have a great IT staff at the 'ville, and I have learned to not freak out..too much, because they can fix it!

When we first started understanding the value of good onboarding, I began compiling all kinds of research and data on the subject. I now have a massive repository of information filled with statistics and best practices—all to help companies be better at welcoming and acclimating their new team members. I compiled my learnings into an issue of RecogNation and we have also segmented a part of the Baudville Blog to this meaty topic. Along the way, a funny thing happened: I stumbled on an article written by a faraway connection, who has, in the past, enthusiastically contributed to our blog. She had a different take: how to help employees be better at onboarding themselves.

Change. Transition. These words can mean so many things – many times people perceive them as nasty four-letter words. When is the last time that you made a change in your professional life? How did you handle the ups and downs? What were your fears and joys? After five years of leading the Baudville Outbound Sales team, I took a leap of faith. Looking more toward my future and what I wanted out of my career, I decided to make a change. Here is my story…